Marty Layne is a homeschool mom from British Columbia and the author
of Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling.
Marty is also a talented singer/songwriter. She has a CD called Brighten The Day - songs to
celebrate the seasons. Marty enjoys conducting her popular workshops at homeschool
conferences in the U.S. and Canada.

What Mothers Need to Develop to Homeschool

Book Review of "Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling"
and Q&A with Marty Layne!

Genuinely like your child or children and enjoy his, her, or their company.

Have a sense of humor.

Be able to read, write and do basic math and be willing to upgrade your skills as necessary.

Have a commitment to a philosophy that leads you to homeschool.

Be prepared to receive criticism for your decision to homeschool.

Have a support system or network and/or a supportive partner.

Be able to learn from mistakes.

Be willing to develop limit setting skills.

Be willing to develop patience.

Be willing to develop observational skills.

Be willing to change.

She expounds on each of these points in her book with insight and compassion.
She gives clear, demonstrative examples of what she means along with advice
for how to develop these traits. The segment on developing limit-setting
skills ought to be required reading for every parent -- homeschooling
or not. It is sensitively written, explaining why kids need limits, and
how to provide them in a secure and loving way.

A good portion of the book addresses how to teach various subjects. It
is filled with personal stories that give useful suggestions for helping
kids (with varying abilities, skills, needs, and interests) learn about
subjects like math, reading, science, the arts and more. Resources are
plentiful. In a chapter on teaching writing composition, Marty Layne gives
excellent advice when she invokes the reader to keep in mind a poem by
Piet Heim:

Put up in a place where it's easy to see
the cryptic admonishment T.T.T.
When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb,
it's well to remember that Things Take Time.

One of my favorite chapters in the book is titled "Burn-out."
The author acknowledges its occurrence in homeschooling as a normal part
of life. A discussion of conflict resolution skills and the acceptance
of change provides insight for how to deal with burn-out. But Marty Layne
goes way beyond the standard advice. She touches on a very real need - the
need for moms to develop and enrich their own lives without separating
from their children, and explains how to do just that. She admonishes
mothers not to "should" on themselves. (I should be more patient,
I should have baked cookies, I should have mopped the floor, etc.) Finally,
she passes along a quote to homeschooling mothers that she saw on a secretary's
desk at a church:

Do not feel totally, ultimately, and completely responsible for everything.
That's my job!

Thanks, God

The sage and lighthearted advice for homeschool mothers makes this book a gem.

Questions & Answers with Marty Layne

This Q&A was conducted during a Virtual Homeschool Conference on
HomefiresJournal Discussion List

Q: Should We Teach Kids To Read At An Early Age?
Have you any information about children who are forced to learn to read
at an early age - or who receive reading instruction regardless of readiness?
And what about children who do, quite naturally and at a very young age,
teach themselves to read - I think they are called "spontaneous readers."

A: The information I have has to do with children being encouraged/forced/expected
to read before they are ready. As I mention in my book, I began to feel
uncomfortable when my oldest son was not reading by the time he was 7
and a half. We started to work on reading - 10 minutes a day but not necessarily
everyday. He learned and was reading within the year - went from no reading
to being able to read anything. I realize looking back how much I was
focused on reading as though that was the only sign of successful homeschooling.

As those of you who have read my book know, my other children learned
to read between 8 and a half and 12 years old. My 14 year old daughter
andI often discuss how amazing it is that the little 6 year old girl who
lives across the street can already read. My daughter found it quite delightful
to watch as this little girl learned to read. There was no way anyone
could have stopped this child from reading other than to take away everything
in print. And I saw that happening with my children when they were ready
to read - there would have been no way to stop them when they were ready.

Obviously for the "spontaneous reader" not learning to read
was not an option. As I have watched my children pursue things that they
seemed almost driven to do, I realized that they were following internal
prompting and doing what I hoped homeschooling would allow them to do
- know themselves. When they were younger, their knowing was not on a
cerebral level. It was an intuitive, instinctual response. As they have
grown older, they have a very solid base of self awareness/knowledge.
In the process, I, too, have grown in my ability to listen to my intuition
and trust my inner knowledge of myself.

Q: What are some of your favorite literature titles to read out loud to
your children?

A: Jim Treleases'
The Read Aloud Handbook
is useful. We did a lot of exploring and reading through things at the library and
suggestions that the librarians made.

I have three sons and a daughter. Books I read to my sons often didn't
work for my daughter. I also found that as I grew with my children, books
that I thought were good at the time weren't as good when I reread them.

12 and up: Books by Gerald Durrel especially
My Family and Other Animals.
Gerald Durrell was the founder of the Jersey Preservation Trust. His books
combine funny stories about people as well as interesting information
about animal life.

For those who like dragons - you might like
Everyone Knows What A Dragon Looks Like
by Jay Williams, Peasant Pig and The Terrible Dragon
by Richard Scarry, and a story by Rumer Godden - Fu Dog. Rumer Godden has written
delightful stories about dolls that even my boys liked as well as stories
about children who are outcasts finding a way to cope - Didokai, McFadden's
Halloween.

I am reminded of the series of books about an Afro-American family -
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, and
others by Mildred Taylor. Also A Choice of Weapons
by Gordon Parks, well-known photographer. A fascinating account of how he came
to choose photography as a way to express himself and work for change. These
would be for ages 12/13 and up.

The problem for all of us at our house now is that we often ask "Anyone
have a good book sitting around?" We wish our favorite authors would
write more books!!!

Q: Are "The Classics" Overrated?
People have said that our lack of interest in the classics with their
archaic language is an indication of our "dumbing down". I don't
agree. Language does evolve and "good reads" don't necessarily
mean old classics. What is your take on "The Classics"?

A: I couldn't agree with you more. When I think of the
6 months we spent in 12th grade English class going over and over E.M. Forester's
A Passage to India,
which I had read in about 3 days, I cringe. It will take me another 20 years before
I am ready to even think of reading another of his books.

We recently watched some films of some of Jane Austin's books
-Pride and Prejudice,
Sense and Sensibility,
and then one of my sons decided to read her books. He enjoyed the humor and the round
about language and descriptions. I did too which surprised me.

Q: Any Video Suggestions?
I am still at a loss when faced with finding quality videos for my kids
- both nonfiction and entertainment. Surely there must be a resource for
these?

A: My children were 5 and more before we started watching videos.
We saw a few inappropriate ones like The Wizard of Oz
before I realized that this was powerful stuff for a 5 yo child who only saw a
video once or twice a year. I then began previewing them, and/or thinking more
about the story. My children watched very few videos when they were under 10
years old. They preferred having a story read to them. They now prefer reading
to watching TV.

One video that we all enjoyed (and we first saw it on the big screen)
was Charlotte's Web.
It's one of our favorite books, so it amazed us that
the video was
well done. Generally, we find that most videos of books we have enjoyed
seem to have no relation to the book we read and we are almost always
disappointed.

My 14 year old daughter has observed that little kids seem to watch a
large number of videos when she baby-sits. She finds it amazing that they
don't play instead.

I don't know if this follows but, we have enjoyed many audio recordings.
Listening to a recorded story is a much more active way of traveling to
a different land than watching a video. We have many stories on tape.
The BBC Radio has done a number of stories such as
The Secret Garden
that are just wonderful. There's a wonderful recording done by EB White of
both Charlotte's Web
and The Trumpet of the Swan.
And try Jay O'Callahan for recorded stories.
He's an incredible story teller.

Q: If Kids don't read "The Classics" how will they learn
to be good writers?
I heard a teacher say that kids in school present essays and papers containing
sentence fragments and run-ons not knowing that it is unacceptable. According
to her, to learn to write well, the kids need to read well-written books
that follow the rules - especially the classics, even if they are archaic.
I wonder if the writing standards will eventually change to accommodate
our evolving language?

A: Writing is such an interesting subject of discussion. Just
how do children learn to write and how does one decide who is a good writer?
We discuss this often at our house, especially after we've read a book
by a favorite author that just isn't up to par with their previous writing.
What makes it not as good? Why do some of us like certain writers and
others of us don't?

My kids read voraciously most of the time. I never asked them to read
anything in particular. Instead, I often suggested that they would like
a certain book. It's from all their reading that they have a sense of
good writing. We have very interesting discussions about commas and other
forms of punctuation as well as writing styles. There are various sites
on the internet that my son Robin has found helpful in his pursuit of
becoming a published author. Writing well seems to me to take time and
a tremendous amount of effort, especially in those books that can be read
effortlessly and the words just flow off the page and into one's mind.
Like anything else that looks effortless, it means a lot of hard work
took place.

It will be interesting to see what writing looks like 20 years from now.
Will we move toward a language of short-hand words and abbreviations?
Will the focus still be on writing lessons as our culture becomes more
and more focused on visual depictions such as music videos, TV dramas,
TV news, computers, and movies? I often find it very boring to watch a
movie, there is no conversation. TV programs also have very little real
conversation. There are a lot of pretty or not so pretty visuals, action
shots and in between some conversation driven plot. Contrast this with
the BBC TV series often shown on PBS stations called "Yes, Minister"
which relies only on conversation to get the story across. It requires
intense listening and attention. I find it a great relief to watch, in
fact, I often just listen to it as I am working on the computer which
is in the same room as our TV.

Q: Any final comments you'd like to make about homeschooling before
your Guest Membership at Homefires Journal ends?

A: Here's something that I wrote recently to sum up why I am so
glad I homeschooled my four who are now all young adults.

The best thing about homeschooling - it's TIME

Time to sit and read to your children out loud Time to stay in your pajamas
all day and play Time to watch your children as they put on plays Time
to listen to your children Time to look at spiders Time to go for a walk
when the sun is shining, or the rain has just started to fall, or the
wind is blowing hard Time to understand your children, to discover what
makes them happy, sad, mad, or glad, and help them understand themselves
Time to build relationships Time for a child to follow an interest Time
for a child to be bored Time to sing Time for a child to learn how to
live in a family with other people all sharing the same space Time for
a child to just sit outside and daydream Time for a child to read Time
for a child to discover things Time to paint in the kitchen and make a
mess Time to learn patience Time to laugh together Time to play games
together Time to just sit with a child and be quiet together Time to call
your own.

The time we had at home with each other or when a few friends came over
to play were rich and satisfying times. We spent a lot of time at home.
Home was a fun place - there were toys that led to interesting play, a
yard that had trees and bushes, pets, brothers and a sister, mom and dad,
and lots and lots of books, plus an unending supply of peanut butter rice
cakes.